Rainbow Nails

Sometimes all you need for really fun nails is a few different colors! I didn't have time to do anything super complicated, so I just picked out a few different fun colors that worked together. I love how it looks like candy - it reminds me of Skittles!

Summery Flower Nails

It has actually been a gorgeous summer here so far, not too hot with plenty of beautiful weather. I've been feeling super into the sunshine lately and I really wanted to try some more nail art, so something summery was an obvious choice! After a little poking around I decided on a daisy-ish design.

UPDATE: Wow, from now on I'm definitely going to start with a clear coat...that lovely green turned out to stain my nails a horrible yellowish color!

July 4th Nail Art

I had a lot of fun last week coming up with these nails! Unfortunately I had some trouble with chipping before we quite got to the 4th, but I was able to repair them all right. I like how it kind of ended up looking like Captain America nail art instead of just 4th of July. It makes me want to do some Avengers-themed nails at some point!

I don't have a full tutorial for this, but I can tell you that I used painter's tape - it turned out to be really easy to cut thin strips to make the stripes. Make them longer than your nail so you have some extra to peel it off later. My biggest problem was, as usual, impatience. You have GOT to wait until the nail polish is completely dry to peel off the tape, or it will take the rest of the polish off with it!

Playing With Makeup

I'm not really sure what made me do this. I recently dyed my hair red, and I LOVE it even though it's not the darker red I was hoping for. It's brighter, and is now fading into basically a strawberry blonde, but when I took these photos it was still really strong. This isn't a cosplay or anything, although it definitely has a fantasy feel to it. Inspired by this photo. 

Ombre Nail Art

This was one of my first tries ever at nail art! A lot of the methods for doing an ombre design called for supplies I don't have, so I ended up winging it. I started with a bottom coat of the lighter color (actually a very pale lavender). To get the shading, I mostly just used the brushes to paint the nail polish colors back and forth, adding a little more of one or the other depending on what it looked like. I did try mixing some polish together and painting that on, which helped for the middle section. I like how instead of a smooth gradient I ended up with something a lot more vibrant and visually interesting, but still shows as an ombre effect at a glance.

Chocolate Cake With Coconut Filling

This recipe turned out great! I believe I originally got the idea from "From Cupcakes to Caviar," but ended up looking up several for reference, so I'm not entirely sure. 

I think possibly my favorite thing about it is how fantastic and classy it looks, and how simple it actually is to make. I had some trouble with the coconut rope falling apart, but it wasn't too bad because instead of trying to poke it down into the batter (why you would even do that I don't understand) I poured about a third of the batter into the Bundt pan, placed the rope in the center (I did poke it in just slightly with my fingers) and then poured the rest over the top. It was as simple as that.

Ugh, I hate how messy the plate is in this picture, but it does give you a good view of the filling!

Color Coordination FTW!

Nothing special to post today, except that the flowers on the bush outside my back door almost EXACTLY match the shade of my new dress! Color serendipity? Absolutely. This clearly meant that I was destined to wear some of these flowers in my hair.

And then, I painted my nails in colors that I usually refer to in my head as "Frozen nails," which pulled in the blue in my jewelry to make a nice contrast.